Awards.com recently relaunched its Web site to make it look more like its catalog pieces. The company's goal is to have the marketing channels complement each other more effectively.
“Aesthetically, we wanted the catalog and the Web site to look like identical twins,” said Mike McCann, chief marketing officer at Awards.com, “or at least make them look like brother and sister.”
Awards.com, Lyndhurst, NJ, a multichannel provider of awards and promotional pieces, changed the layout scheme on its Web site by adding the same colors — orange and white — it used for its catalogs. McCann said Awards.com used the same digital photography for both channels.
“There's no question when you log on, if you've received a catalog in the past, that we're the same company, whereas before, there was a quite distinct disparity because we used two groups working parallel paths on each vehicle,” McCann said.
In addition to making the channels look alike, Awards.com added integrating functionalities to the Web site, McCann said. The company cross-promotes the channels, for instance, by placing a link on the Web site that enables consumers to insert a product number from the catalog, which takes them directly to the selected item, he said.
Awards.com also promotes the Web address on several pages of the catalogs. For example, the catalogs include order forms and cutout pieces that aim to drive consumers to the Web site.
“We're letting the consumer choose the method of purchase that he or she is most familiar with,” McCann said, “but at the same time letting one [channel] promote the other.”
Toward that end, Awards.com — which recently formed a sponsorship agreement with the Pop Warner Little Scholars League and gained access to the league's mailing list — launched a direct mail campaign that targeted 15,000 coaches and 5,000 league administrators. The goal of the campaign, McCann said, was to generate Web traffic via offline marketing.
Response rates were not available, McCann said.
Pop Warner, Langhorne, PA, which partnered with Awards.com to provide its coaches and administrators with an online station to purchase awards, signed a three-year contract with the company because of its multichannel marketing schemes.
“Awards is very aggressive in their marketing efforts,” said Jon Butler, executive director at Pop Warner. “While having an online presence is becoming more and more important, the volume and breadth of the direct mail component [benefit] us just as much, because the more of these adult volunteers we reach out to, the better the program does.”
Awards.com, in an effort to further broaden its multichannel marketing capabilities, conducted a test earlier this month that went out to 150,000 coaches and league administrators across the country. The goal of the test was to examine the effectiveness of driving people to the Web via direct mail, McCann said.
The test, which offered consumers $20 off with a $100 purchase, was the first of two waves, McCann said. The second phase is scheduled to go out to the same 150,000 people in early November, he said.
Awards.com, which has partnered with several professional league organizations, recently completed licensing agreements with the National Football League and Major League Baseball. The deals allow the company to use the MLB logo and any of the NFL team logos on the newly launched Trophy Building feature on the Web site, McCann said.
